Friday, November 30, 2012

Speaking Lies to the UN

Mr. President of the General Assembly,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Palestine comes today to the United Nations
General Assembly at a time when it is still tending to its wounds and
still burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have
fallen victim to the latest Israeli aggression, still searching for
remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on
the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and
children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and
their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and
peace.

Palestine comes today to the General Assembly
because it believes in peace and because its people, as proven in past
days, are in desperate need of it.

Palestine comes today to this prestigious
international forum, representative and protector of international
legitimacy, reaffirming our conviction that the international community
now stands before the last chance to save the two-State solution.

Palestine comes to you today at a defining
moment regionally and internationally, in order to reaffirm its presence
and to try to protect the possibilities and the foundations of a just
peace that is deeply hoped for in our region.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Israeli aggression against our people in
the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to
end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and
independence. This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government’s
adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in
turn obliges the international community to shoulder its
responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and towards peace.

This is why we are here today.

I say with great pain and sorrow… there was
certainly no one in the world that required that tens of Palestinian
children lose their lives in order to reaffirm the above-mentioned
facts. There was no need for thousands of deadly raids and tons of
explosives for the world to be reminded that there is an occupation that
must come to an end and that there are a people that must be liberated.
And, there was no need for a new, devastating war in order for us to be
aware of the absence of peace.

This is why we are here today.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Palestinian people, who miraculously
recovered from the ashes of Al-Nakba of 1948, which was intended to
extinguish their being and to expel them in order to uproot and erase
their presence, which was rooted in the depths of their land and depths
of history. In those dark days, when hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians were torn from their homes and displaced within and outside
of their homeland, thrown from their beautiful, embracing, prosperous
country to refugee camps in one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic
cleansing and dispossession in modern history. In those dark days, our
people had looked to the United Nations as a beacon of hope and appealed
for ending the injustice and for achieving justice and peace, the
realization of our rights, and our people still believe in this and
continue to wait.

This is why we are here today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the course of our long national struggle,
our people have always strived to ensure harmony and conformity between
the goals and means of their struggle and international law and spirit
of the era in accordance with prevailing realities and changes. And, our
people always have strived not to lose their humanity, their highest,
deeply-held moral values and their innovative abilities for survival,
steadfastness, creativity and hope, despite the horrors that befell them
and continue befall them today as a consequence of Al-Nakba and its
horrors.

Despite the enormity and weight of this task,
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the sole, legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people and the constant leader of
their revolution and struggle, has consistently strived to achieve this
harmony and conformity.

When the Palestine National Council decided in
1988 to pursue the Palestinian peace initiative and adopted the
Declaration of Independence, which was based on resolution 181 (II) (29
November 1947), adopted by your august body, it was in fact undertaking,
under the leadership of the late President Yasser Arafat, a historic,
difficult and courageous decision that defined the requirements for a
historic reconciliation that would turn the page on war, aggression and
occupation.

This was not an easy matter. Yet, we had the
courage and sense of high responsibility to make the right decision to
protect the higher national interests of our people and to confirm our
adherence to international legitimacy, and it was a decision which in
that same year was welcomed, supported and blessed by this high body
that is meeting today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have heard and you too have heard
specifically over the past months the incessant flood of Israeli threats
in response to our peaceful, political and diplomatic endeavor for
Palestine to acquire non-member observer State in the United Nations.
And, you have surely witnessed how some of these threats have been
carried out in a barbaric and horrific manner just days ago in the Gaza
Strip.

We have not heard one word from any Israeli
official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process. On
the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an
unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade,
settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied
East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other
practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with
an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the
plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.

What permits the Israeli Government to
blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of
war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the law and that
it has immunity from accountability and consequences. This belief is
bolstered by the failure by some to condemn and demand the cessation of
its violations and crimes and by position that equate the victim and the
executioner.

The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation.

This is why we are here now.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a
State established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to
affirm the legitimacy of the State that must now achieve its
independence, and that is Palestine. We did not come here to add further
complications to the peace process, which Israel’s policies have thrown
into the intensive care unit; rather we came to launch a final serious
attempt to achieve peace. Our endeavor is not aimed at terminating what
remains of the negotiations process, which has lost its objective and
credibility, but rather aimed at trying to breathe new life into the
negotiations and at setting a solid foundation for it based on the terms
of reference of the relevant international resolutions in order for the
negotiations to succeed.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, I say: We will not give up, we will not tire, and our
determination will not wane and we will continue to strive to achieve a
just peace.

However, above all and after all, I affirm
that our people will not relinquish their inalienable national rights,
as defined by United Nations resolutions. And our people cling to the
right to defend themselves against aggression and occupation and they
will continue their popular, peaceful resistance and their epic
steadfastness and will continue to build on their land. And, they will
end the division and strengthen their national unity. We will accept no
less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East
Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in
1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel, and a
solution for the refugee issue on the basis of resolution 194 (III), as
per the operative part of the Arab Peace Initiative.

Yet, we must repeat here once again our
warning: the window of opportunity is narrowing and time is quickly
running out. The rope of patience is shortening and hope is withering.
The innocent lives that have been taken by Israeli bombs – more than 168
martyrs, mostly children and women, including 12 members of one family,
the Dalou family, in Gaza – are a painful reminder to the world that
this racist, colonial occupation is making the two-State solution and
the prospect for realizing peace a very difficult choice, if not
impossible.

It is time for action and the moment to move forward.

This is why we are here today.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentleman,

The world is being asked today to undertake a
significant step in the process of rectifying the unprecedented
historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people since Al-Nakba
of 1948.

Every voice supporting our endeavor today is a
most valuable voice of courage, and every State that grants support
today to Palestine’s request for non-member observer State status is
affirming its principled and moral support for freedom and the rights of
peoples and international law and peace.

Your support for our endeavor today will send a
promising message – to millions of Palestinians on the land of
Palestine, in the refugee camps both in the homeland and the Diaspora,
and to the prisoners struggling for freedom in Israel’s prisons – that
justice is possible and that there is a reason to be hopeful and that
the peoples of the world do not accept the continuation of the
occupation.

This is why we are here today.

Your support for our endeavor today will give a
reason for hope to a people besieged by a racist, colonial occupation.
Your support will confirm to our people that they are not alone and
their adherence to international law is never going to be a losing
proposition.

In our endeavor today to acquire non-member
State status for Palestine in the United Nations, we reaffirm that
Palestine will always adhere to and respect the Charter and resolutions
of the United Nations and international humanitarian law, uphold
equality, guarantee civil liberties, uphold the rule of law, promote
democracy and pluralism, and uphold and protect the rights of women.

As we promised our friends and our brothers
and sisters, we will continue to consult with them upon the approval of
your esteemed body our request to upgrade Palestine’s status. We will
act responsibly and positively in our next steps, and we will to work to
strengthen cooperation with the countries and peoples of the world for
the sake of a just peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which partitioned
the land of historic Palestine into two States and became the birth
certificate for Israel.

Sixty-five years later and on the same day,
which your esteemed body has designated as the International Day of
Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the General Assembly stands
before a moral duty, which it must not hesitate to undertake, and stands
before a historic duty, which cannot endure further delay, and before a
practical duty to salvage the chances for peace, which is urgent and
cannot be postponed.

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine.

Share It

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.